The Pact
by dear-broken-heart
Summary: [PreRent] What if April wasn't the only one meant to die that day? It's the secret Roger plans to keep forever.


**A/N: **Short, but sweet. I got this idea when I was thinking about the movie and the way they didn't include the fact that April committed suicide. So, I decided to create a storyline that fit that, but also stayed true to the musical _(very true)_. (Some of the storyline ideas come from the book The Pact by Jodi Picoult)

**Disclaimer: **I own neither Rent (Jonathan Larson) nor the book The Pact (Jodi Pocoult)

* * *

It was the lie he'd take to his grave and the day he would mourn forever. 

They got the results that morning. The folded paper, the black ink, and the only words that stood out on the page: "HIV+." They did what they knew best that day, filled their veins with the same substance that had assisted in acquiring their death sentence. They cried. Specifically, she fell to pieces. He offered a solution, the suggestion he would regret forever.

"We could be like Romeo and Juliet." What a joke that was. Desperate to be loved and fueled by drugs, she'd agree to anything, anything that would claim to save her.

They couldn't afford the gun. Too bad, that would have been easy. Pull the trigger. One second. No pain. No thinking.

Cutters by teenage nature, they both had scars that ran deep. It seemed fitting; razor blades are cheap, just like their lives had become.

That day she wrote the note. He watched her as she painstakingly wrote each letter. The drugs were wearing off, her body wasfalling apart. When she was done the words, ironically, looked scribbled, like a hastily written note pinned on the refrigerator door.

Walking to the bathroom, she set the note down on the edge of the sink. "Wait," he called to her from the living room. She slowly turned around and took the several steps back to him. He held the needle, she tied the tourniquet, there was no sense leaving any behind, and it calmed both their nerves.

They walked down the narrow hallway hand and hand, entering the small, tiled bathroom. She read the short message three times backwards in the mirror as he pulled the blades from the plastic package. He handed her one and she took it in silence.

He kissed her passionately, his eyes squinting to keep from crying and her eyes to filling with tears. He whispered "I love you" in her ear. She let out a single muffled cry in the collar of his sweatshirt before she returned the words.

They sat back to back on the cold tile floor, blades in hand. Both silently beginning to question why they were doing this, even as the drugs were starting to take effect, but neither willing to say a word.

He made the first cut, watching the blood trickle from his wrist, landing on his pale, worn jeans.

She sat for a minute, silently crying and praying to God to forgive her. She made a light cut, barely leaving a scratch before letting the razor blade dive into her skin. She bit her lip, the pain immense.Her screams weresubdued to just a slight whimper.

She pulled the blade from deep in her skin and hashed another mark, creating a deep "X" in her left wrist.

He stared at the cut on his wrist, the blood dripping, but slowly. He heard her let out a soft cry, and then let the blade plunge into his skin once again.

A puddle of blood was forming beneath her. Her breathing quickened as she switched hands and sliced her right wrist quickly, cutting a large vein in one swift motion. She dropped the blade and it hit the tile, but landed in the pool of blood, making no noise.

He stared at the two clean, surface cuts for at least five minutes. He never admitted to her that he never cut that deep back in high school. He only cut to know he could still feel pain, never for the scars. It never gave himthe release it seemed to give her. He cut once more, deeper, just for her. He wanted this just as much as she did., he swore he did. It was his idea after all.

Her breathing quickened even more as her body went into shock as she stared at the open wounds. Her body fell back against his, inches away as she lost consciousness.

"April?" he cried, turning around, and letting his hands guide her body to the floor in place of where he had been sitting.

"April!" He looked down at the pool of blood. She had done it, but he'd been to weak. He picked up the blade and slashed his wrist again in a fit of anger. He still hadn't gone deep enough. He knew he wanted this! What was stopping him?

He leaned down on April, kissing her forehead. "Please April, wake up!" he cried angrily.

Why had he come up with this idea in the first place? Why did she agree? Why did they have to get AIDS? Why?

Her eyelids fluttered. "Please April!"

The apartment door slammed.

"Please April!" he cried, his voice muffled in her hair.

"Roger, are you home?" the voice called from another room. The dining roomchair creaked as a jacket was thrown over the back, with blue andwhite striped scarf on top. "Roger?"

"April…April…" he pleaded as he sat leaning back and forth like a young child, tears streaming down his face.

The wooden floor creaked as footsteps neared the bathroom door. The knob turned, the well-oiled hinges let out barely a squeak. "Oh my gosh, Roger! April!"

Roger quickly rolled his sweatshirt sleeves over the cuts on his own wrists, the cuts bruned against the tight fitting fabric. "Please…Please Mark, I found her here," the words barely escaped his lips.

* * *

**A/N: **Why is everything I write horribly depressing? I promise I'm not some extremely depressed person, but for some reason everything I write does seem to come out that way. 

Secondly, why is everything I write littered with commas? Blame my middle school English teachers (trust me, they do deserve some sort of punishment).


End file.
